360 losing time

corblimey

Every time I turn off my 360 it loses the current time, resetting it next time I turn it on. I'm just turning off the console via the wireless controller, not unplugging it or anything. Is the 360 like a PC in that there's a small battery somewhere that keeps this sort of information stored? Is it possible to get it fixed/replaced?

I wouldn't mind normally but it's getting difficult to work out which savegame is my latest version as they've all got the same date and random but similar timestamps.

jester77

Are you connected to Live?

The xbox automatically takes the date/time from the Live server every time you log on so it should be ok.

red dave

corblimey wrote: »

Every time I turn off my 360 it loses the current time, resetting it next time I turn it on. I'm just turning off the console via the wireless controller, not unplugging it or anything. Is the 360 like a PC in that there's a small battery somewhere that keeps this sort of information stored? Is it possible to get it fixed/replaced?

I wouldn't mind normally but it's getting difficult to work out which savegame is my latest version as they've all got the same date and random but similar timestamps.

I was only thinking about posting about this very thing yesterday. It has got to be one of the most annoying things with the 360. I only keep 1 save at a time now as it was getting really confusing with Bioshock and GTA. I connect to Live through a wired connection which then updates the time but I don't always get up off my arse to walk accross the room to plug in the connection . This is something that is the same with all 360's AFAIK.

corblimey

jester77 wrote: »

Are you connected to Live?

The xbox automatically takes the date/time from the Live server every time you log on so it should be ok.

Nope. I've not been connected to Live for a very long time, and while it's my indication that this is a recent development, it's completely possible that I've never noticed until I started playing GTA IV? So is this just "one of them things"?

jester77

corblimey wrote: »

Nope. I've not been connected to Live for a very long time, and while it's my indication that this is a recent development, it's completely possible that I've never noticed until I started playing GTA IV? So is this just "one of them things"?

Mine is always online so I've never had a problem. Just did a quick search and it appears the 360 has no internal battery for preserving the date/time so not much you can do apart from setting the time every time you turn it on! Sucks, I saw a link to this book which talks about the behind the scenes of creating the xbox. I haven't read it but someone mentioned that they argue about fractions of cents in the design, so I guess a battery would have cost too much! Might get me a copy of it!

Fingleberries

Yeah - the xbox 360 doesn't have a BIOS battery (something that's generally used in Laptops, PCs and the like) to keep date / time settings if main power is lost.

If you set the time and leave your 360 plugged in, it will save the time by using a small amount of power to Xbox to keep this setting - although you'll have Al Gore coming looking for a chat with you about the power of one

Or, any time you sign in to live (even a Silver account) it will set the time automatically on the system.



Frustrating, I know, but leaving the battery out is a saving on a balance sheet somewhere (if you look at a battery at 10cents, for 15-20 million consoles it does add up I suppose. Particularly when you're trying to have absolute minimum additional overheads for each unit)

silvine

Leaving that BIOS battery out is one of Microsoft's cost-cutting tricks that pisses me off. They pretty much banged out that console even though it wasn't finished and lacked the polish of the PS3. I don't think an in-buiilt clock that works off-line is too much to expect of a supposedly "next-generation" console.

Sure, it's fine if you're connected to the net, but if you are off line and start saving games, the dates get real confusing.